Integration of GIS and MMS in Wi-LBS

4.2. Discussion

4.2.2. Integration of GIS and MMS in Wi-LBS

messages that contains simple guidelines on writing correct request message including sample request codes.

elements in the system. The use of colors is also taken into consideration in which standard Windows-like colors are used for the interface design.

Several comparisons were done to compare Wi-LBS in standalone platform with the one in web-based platform, in which web-based platform is more reliable that standalone platform. It is explained in the table below:

Visual Basic

on GSM network and connection between mobile phone

and COMport

Limited to sending and receiving, simple search, basic GIS features

and simple interface design

Use mobile phone as gateway

J2ME, XML, WML, PHP

Relies on GSM/GPRSIUMTS network and Internet

connection Variety

services offered such as more interactive interface, easy navigation, advanced search and support high

speed sending and retrieving messages Use typical or

gateway similar as used to configure web-based

application

Need to install the system in each machine that uses it

Microsoft Access

and viewable using web browser; no need to install one system

for each machine

j Oracle9i Spatial, MySQL

================~

phone MMS mobile phone, PDA, MMSmo

notebook with wireless connection

Table 4.5: Comparison between Standalone and Web-Based Platform ofWi-LBS

The comparisons are made based on several products and existing web-based LBS implemented in United States of America and several companies in Europe. According to IDC, in a January 2002 survey of 700 U.S. wireless households, web-based location- based services scored highest in terms of consumer interest, with permission-based traffic information being second only to emergency-location service, and just ahead of opt-in location-based information on nearby businesses such as nearest movie theater and gas stations. 65% of wireless users are interested in tum-by-turn navigation assistance and are willing to pay more than $1 each time they use the service. Another proves was presented in research paper by Derek Kerton on "Location Based Services:

Technologies and Applications". In the paper, he explained about the customer interest in web-based LBS. About half of wireless users and 55% of wireless Internet users were aware of web-based LBS in 2002. 32% of wireless users and 38% of wireless Internet users are willing to pay monthly fee for web-based LBS of up to $10. Research did by The Strategies Group have come out with figures on worldwide users' acceptance of Web-Based Wireless Location Based Information from year 2002 to year 2005. It is presented in the Figure 4.5 below:

Users in Millions

250 200 ISO

100 50 0

216,6

2002 2003 2004 2005 Year

Figure 4.5: Worldwide Users' Acceptance of Web-Based Wireless Location Based Information from Year 2002 to 2005

The increase of users' acceptance from year 2002 to year 2005 is caused by the increase of customer demand on location services. Hundreds of unique applications are being developed with wireless location. Furthermore, services that are related to safety, such as roadside service and navigation are becoming the most popular services in web-based location based information. Besides that, the increase also caused by services like purchasing a ticket from a vendor and accessing lodging information, which really give great impact to the users' acceptance of web-based location services.

In addition, according to Eve Kleiman, Principal Product Manager, Geospatial and Multimedia Technologies of Oracle Corporation Asia/Pacific, the performance and capability requirements expected for wireless location based service can easily approach that of a top Internet portal - millions of queries on a daily basis, hundreds of concurrent transactions, and millisecond query response times. Thus, the required system must

support all the unique CPU-intensive location queries, and provide scalability, storage, and interoperability. Real-time, web-based location services offer several characteristics and performance. This can be referred on the table below:

Map rendering

Yell ow page directory query Driving directions

Personalization by location Proximity analysis

Standards-based location service APis Personal/in-car navigation capability Voice (VoiceXML) capability

XML integration withe-business apps Web Services Directories

Gigabytes to terabytes of data Multiple CPU processing DBMS table partitioning Distributed processing

Native spatial data management Online services interoperability Millisecond location query Millions daily queries

25 000 user sessions per hour Portal caching

Table 4.6: Characteristics and Performance of Web-Based Wi-LBS

As for database support, Oracle9i, Oracle9i Spatial and Oracle9iAS Wireless offers high-end features to integrate with web-based LBS. Using Oracle product offers various benefits when deploying web-based wireless LBS. The benefits are presented in the table below in comparison with typical Link-Driven and Proprietary Location-Based Applications:

I

Batch/off-line applications

Simple queries used by Portals

I

Stovepipe applications

I

Link driven - no actual content

I

Not integrated withe-business services

Not enabled for wireless devices

location services

I

B2C focus

I

Limited platform availability

I

Limited scalability

I

Limited support for 3rd party tools

I

Proprietary interfaces

Real-time transactions

SQL queries integrated into e-business applications

Open architecture

Dynamic links to content, online services Integrated with leading e-Business apps

devices

Unlimited support for external services B2C, B2B2C, and B2B focus

Multi-platform support Proven terabyte

Supported by all leading IT tool vendors SQL, XML and Java interfaces

Table 4.7: Benefits of Deploying Oracle9i, Oracle9i Spatial and Oracle9iAS in Web-Based Wireless Location-Based Services